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Technology
In the two years since Sidewalk Labs pitched its vision for a grand smart city development — encompassing an entire neighborhood on the Toronto waterfront — the project has been beset by controversy and criticism.
On one hand, the 12-acre project in TorontoQuayside district promised to be a proving ground for the latest thinking in sustainable design and technology integration into urban planning led by a subsidiary of one of the worldmost innovative technology companies. On the other, that same technology company has been instrumental in the development of a corporate, technologically enabled, panopticon that has an almost total view into our digital (and physical) lives through its search and mapping technology.
Giving that company the potential for unfettered access to the built environment in which Toronto citizens would move seemed like a step too far for many privacy advocates in the city — and around the world.
The public outcry had gotten so loud that the project seemed to be in jeopardy. That, in turn, likely would be an existential challenge to Sidewalk Labs, since the companywork in Toronto was to be the early crown jewel proving out its ability to integrate technology into the built environment in a way that would benefit populations, the company argued.
Now, the project will move forward. Sidewalk and Waterfront Toronto (the regulatory body overseeing the project) have come to an agreement that will limit the scope of the Sidewalk development and make the company work more closely with oversight agencies on the construction of the 12-acre parcel abutting Torontoparliamentary building.
&We are encouraged by todaydecision by the Waterfront Toronto board and are pleased to have reached alignment on critical issues with Waterfront Toronto. We want to be a partner with Waterfront Toronto and governments to build an innovative and inclusive neighborhood,& said Sidewalk Labs chief executive officer, Dan Doctoroff, in a statement.
Sidewalk is making some significant concessions to move forward. Under the initial plan that the company submitted in June, it attempted to expand the scope of its development efforts beyond the initial 12 acres it had been bidding for. The company also wanted to be the lead developer of the land.
Instead, Sidewalk is acceding to the Waterfront Toronto counter-offer that it restrict its development to the 12-acre &beta site& initially carved out by the city. The company will also agree to work with Waterfront Toronto, which will lead a public procurement process for a developer to partner with Sidewalk Labs. Finally, Sidewalk Labs will also no longer lead the efforts to design and implement infrastructure. Thatnow going to be handled by Waterfront Toronto.
&After two years in Toronto and engaging and planning with over 21,000 Toronto residents, we are looking forward to the next round of public consultations, entering the evaluation process, and continuing to develop a plan to build the most innovative neighborhood in the world. We are working to demonstrate an inclusive neighbourhood here in Toronto where we can shorten commute times, make housing more affordable, create new jobs, and set a new standard for a healthier planet.&
One of the sticking points that the agreement between Sidewalk and the city doesn&t address is whatgoing to be done with all of the data the company will doubtless be collecting about the residents and visitors to this new intentional community.
Data privacy was one of the biggest concerns about the project. Indeed, at one point Sidewalk Labs proposed setting up an independent trust that would analyze and approve data collection in Quayside. The conflict between Sidewalk and its consultants drove one expert, Dr. Ann Cavoukian, to step away from the work she was doing. Cavoukian wanted the data collection to be anonymized before it would be collected by any entity, and Sidewalk Labs was not willing to make that commitment on behalf of third parties.
Even with concerns over data collection, the experiment in urban planning has merit. Integrating technology to improve efficiencies in construction, energy generation, energy efficiency, traffic management and telecommunications could create a roadmap that other developments could follow. Thata good thing. But those advancements should not come at the cost of an even greater erosion of personal privacy.
Ensuring that Sidewalk Labs can thread that needle in Toronto could actually improve the companychances to create a quilt of technologically advanced communities around the world.
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Write comment (100 Comments)The Daily Crunch is TechCrunchroundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you&d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here.
1. Jack Dorsey says Twitter will ban all political ads
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Plenty of tech companies are trying their hand at subscription services by this stage, and Apple is certainly ramping it up with its Apple Music and Apple Arcade platforms, along with the imminent Apple TV Plus service set to take on the likes of Netflix.
Following Apple’s earnings call and comments by CEO Tim Cook, CNBC has speculated that the
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Write comment (100 Comments)Album VC, a Lehi, Utah-based early-stage venture firm thatbeen known until now as Peak Ventures, just gathered up $75 million in capital commitments for its third early-stage fund.
The development shows investor confidence in Albumyoung team, which came together in 2014 after the founder of Zinch — a site connecting colleges and students that sold to the ed-tech company Chegg in 2011 — decided to try his hand at investing in other startups.
As that founder, Sid Krommenhoek — who stayed on with Chegg for several years, running its international efforts — explains it, &I thought I&d do another startup. But I also knew from our own experience in struggling to raise money the need for more capital in Utah, and I thought having that operator-entrepreneur perspective could be useful.&
A first fund, like many in the industry, was more of an experiment, though it was a decent $23 million, thanks largely to the support of Chegg CEO Dan Rosensweig, who was early to commit capital to the fund. A second ($56 million) fund followed when Krommenhoek and John Mayfield — a friend who joined him from a marketing role at Qualtrics — began investing more seriously in their backyard and beyond.
They were soon joined by a third investor, Diogo Myrrha, who began as a principal with the firm and is now a general partner. Explains Krommenhoek of one of the many things that binds the three Brigham Young University grads, &We all came into Utahorbit when it wasn&t necessarily a place where you could live out your career, but thatchanged.&
Indeed, Albummomentum — Krommenhoek claims they raised their new fund in one monthtime — also underscores the continuing growth of the startup scene in Utah, where a growing number of home-grown companies have paid off in a big way for their backers, creating new wealth thatnow being reinvested.
Album isn&t an investor in two of Utahbiggest success stories, Qualtrics and PluralSight, but it jumped early into two others that must have gotten its limited partners excited. One of these is Podium, a fast-growing, five-year-old, Utah-based company that helps businesses manage reviews and communicate with customers online and that has so far raised roughly $93 million, including from IVP, GV and Accel. The other is Divvy, a three-year-old, Utah-based company that helps businesses manage payments and subscriptions, build strategic budgets and eliminate expense reports. Divvy has raised more than $250 million from investors, including New Enterprise Associates, Insight Partners and Pelion Venture Partners.
As for how it will invest its newest capital pool, Krommenhoek says the idea is to invest in roughly 24 companies, roughly half of them in Utah. He also says the firm tends to fund more mature seed-stage deals, meaning companies that have moved past the paper-napkin phase and can prove that their product or service is gaining some early traction.
That won&t change with this new fund, though the size of the average check will be slightly higher than in the past, ranging from $1 million to $1.5 million in exchange for at least 10% of a company. &We like to own double digits,& says Krommenhoek. &What we do at this stage doesn&t scale because human relationships don&t scale. You can only have a finite number of deep relationships.&
In terms of the firmareas of interest, Krommenhoek suggests these are broad, but that Album — a name meant to hint at the firmcollaborative nature — is most comfortable with software-as-a-service startups, marketplaces and companies focused in some way on the future of work.
Above, from left to right John Mayfield (general partner), Lisa Thomas (engagement), Sid Krommenhoek (general partner), Diogo Myrrha (general partner) and Steve Hale (operations).
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